Ex-Amazon VP: Why Bad Managers Don't Get Fired | Ethan Evans

Added: 2026-05-10

[00:00:00]You could consider this as mutiny. If you went to them and you said, "Hey, my manager is bad. I don't want to report to this person. Do you have any examples of of this kind of escalation coming to you?"

[00:00:12]>> All the time. All the time. One of the hardest things for people to understand is I've identified a legitimate weakness in my boss. I go to my skip. Why doesn't he do something?

[00:00:24]Well, if you come to me with a weakness in one of my employees, there is subconsciously this process that goes on that says, "I have two choices. I can believe that you're overly sensitive and high maintenance.

[00:00:40]In which case, I don't really have a problem. You're the problem.

[00:00:44]And you know, you're two levels down for me. So, if you quit, the manager has to do the back fill. And I can tell the manager, you know, Ryan was here. he said this, that, and the other. Maybe you can work with him. And that's exactly what you don't want is me ratting you out. But I can make it my manager's problem. On the other hand, if I agree with you and I'm like, you know what? This this manager I have really isn't that good. Now I have three problems. This is really bad for me.

[00:01:12]One, I have to decide what to do with my manager. Maybe I have to manage them out. Two, if I do manage them out, I have to hire and train somebody else.

[00:01:20]And three, while they're gone, I have to do all their work myself. So, you can see why even if it's subconscious, I have a lot of reasons not to listen or not to believe very easily. So, mutiny, let's talk about mutiny.

[00:01:35]If you want to see it as a mutiny, we've talked about pirates already.

[00:01:39]Never mutiny alone.

[00:01:41]If you want that to work, if you really want to say this manager is bad and we have a problem, take two or three people or send two or three people in sequence. Find some of your co-workers who are willing to speak up because I will give you an example.

[00:01:56]It really bothers me. I had a leader who was treating the women on his team like crap. Now, he wasn't doing that in front of me, but it turns out it was true.

[00:02:11]Well, it took a long time for the different rumors to bubble up to me enough to where I'm like, I'm hearing bad things. And then I went and talked to several of the women and I'm like, so in working with this person, I'm hearing and they're like, oh yeah.

[00:02:31]Well, then I was like, oh, okay, I've been blind to a problem. I need to act on it.

[00:02:38]Had any one of them come to me early and said, "This person's a problem. They're doing this, that, and the other." I probably wouldn't have listened because it was a lone report. But when several of those reports came up, then I'm like, "Oh I've been missing something." So if you want to hold a mutiny, go together, right? Like even if it's Zelda, like it's it's dangerous to go alone, take this. Take other people.

[00:03:05]>> I see. Okay. So if let's say there's a high performing IC >> who is reporting to a manager and say the fact is that that manager has some shortcomings in in their abilities >> you would say don't go immediately to the skip first build allies with some of the other people and say hey are you also seeing this with this person and >> if you can yeah you want to talk to them and say hey do you see what I see well one thing is that's a way to sanity check I'm really struggling with our boss in this area, do you are you having that problem? And if they say, "No, I get along with them, great, and here's how."

[00:03:42]Then maybe you can learn and adjust.

[00:03:43]That's the style thing. Whereas if they're like, "Oh, yeah."

[00:03:47]Then the hardest next hurdle is are they willing to speak up? Because a lot of people aren't. But if they know that you're going to go first and play ring leader, like I will go talk to our skip, but I'm going to tell our skip. They can verify my story by talking to you or and and also to Sally or Fred or Rajie.

[00:04:09]Most managers, if you go to them and say, "Look, I know that my saying the boss is a weak link is uncomfortable and difficult for you, but these three people are all willing to share similar stories. Would you consider at least talking to them?

[00:04:28]Most managers will do that. Most, you know, not all. There's no there's no guarantees when you're dealing with people." I mean that's yeah that's the immediate thing I imagine is let's say I was that IC and then I went to other people and we all kind of knew that that person had a shortcoming it there's the difference between that that water cooler talk and saying yeah this person's disorganized yeah he keeps doing that compared to hey I'm going to go to his boss now and we're gonna we're going to make take this up a notch because also there's this this delicate balance which is all these people still report to that person. So now >> if you were to get caught at any point in this process, you might worry about retribution or something if you're wrong.

[00:05:14]>> Um what about the path of because that this is a this is a lot. I mean your man needs to be pretty bad if you do this.

[00:05:21]What about the approach of you say, "Hey, it's just me and him." and you want to go to the skip and say, "Hey, Ethan, um, you know, nothing nothing personal with the person that I'm reporting to, but I see a better business case for me to go to another team or, you know, something like that where you word it and say, I you know, don't don't think poorly of this manager, but I'll be more productive somewhere else for your org." What about that approach rather than the >> Well, you're blending two approaches. Um the first of which is remember we talked about the story you tell versus the story that may be true.

[00:06:04]If you can actually make a strong case that you're equally valuable or more valuable somewhere else, a plausible case, don't even bring up the manager.

[00:06:13]just say, "Hey, I was looking at this other role and I think I could do so much more for you in the or over here because of A, B, and C." And you try that run first. And if that works, you're done. You never have to bring it up. The second thing you can say, you've just you've got to you've got to play chess, not checkers, meaning several moves in advance. You can totally say, look, candidly, you keep it blame free.

[00:06:41]I'm not compatible with our leader. I'm not Maybe it's him, maybe it's me. Of course, I naturally feel that maybe I'm doing good work and and he could improve, but I'm not here to throw your manager under the bus. I'm just here to tell you I need a change.

[00:06:59]And I did this once with a leader at Amazon where I wanted to make a change.

[00:07:05]I was doing a good job for him in the role I was in. So, he wanted me to stay there. And what I had to help him understand is I said, "You are seeing this as I take this new role or I stay in this role and you'd prefer I stay in this role because that's good for you." And I get that.

[00:07:26]But what I'm trying to tell you is either I take this new role in your org that I'm asking for or I'm going somewhere else entirely. So there is no choice. Keep me where I'm at. there's do you want me on your team or on someone else's team. Now I had both options available. And it was really interesting because after weeks and weeks of resistance, I was in the new role the next morning. Like once he got the clarity of, oh, I thought I had a choice between you stay in the role I want you in and you go to the role I don't really want you in, but the choice I actually have is I keep you in my team or I lose you.

[00:08:05]It was totally different the next morning.

[00:08:07]>> But how how did you word that in a way where that person you were reporting to did not feel upset that you kind of subverted their power and >> forced their hand?

[00:08:18]>> Um that's a good question and so I can exemplify that. I framed it in terms of what they would do. Uh this person was a vice president at that point. I was a vice president reporting to them. So, I was like a smaller vice president, whatever, lower in level, and I had gotten a job offer from a senior vice president in a different organization.

[00:08:40]That was my other job. So, I went to him and I said, "I have an offer from this SVP.

[00:08:50]Now, you know that if I give my word to that guy, I have to go." Like, that's what you would do. If I give my word, it's over.

[00:08:59]You know, I really want this other role.

[00:09:01]I have to give this guy an answer.

[00:09:03]You've told me no on this other role several times. What do you want me to do?

[00:09:09]Bam. The door. Like, because once he understood, he understood he would never break his word to an SVP.

[00:09:16]So, he understood that the moment I gave my word, it was done. And so, that's the same like what would you do?

[00:09:26]If you can tap into the manager feeling like, "Okay, I don't like it, but I get it." That's what I was doing is he was like, "Oh, I don't like this, but okay, I get it."

[00:09:35]>> There were three roles that under consideration.

[00:09:38]>> Well, there was the one I was in, and the one I really wanted, and the alternative I had gotten on the table.

[00:09:43]>> So, you brought in a a new option that was better than your current, and you said, "My alternative now is I may leave you unless you give me what I want." But you didn't say that directly, right?

[00:09:53]>> I didn't say that what I want. Instead, I said I actually I'm very careful not to make it that threatening. I said, you know, once I give my word, I'm I can't go back on that. Like that's that the the wording is I as soon as you say it, I think I mean if I was that manager, I there's I'm on your side even though I see the what what was the what was the word there? The polite fiction, I guess. I see the play fiction immediately, but I laugh because it's just so and I think this is a skill I haven't figured out how to teach people, but maybe this talk can help.

[00:10:35]Several times I've given you these polite fictions, these careful wordings.

[00:10:40]I think a mistake people make that they can do so much better is think through your wording before you're in the room.

[00:10:48]Because most of these conversations are not spurof the- moment. You either they're either on the calendar, this is my performance review or whatever, or you at least know they're going to come up. And so spend the time to have that key phrase ready so that you can just with true sincerity say, "Yeah, you know, once I give my word, I can't go back on that."

[00:11:15]And I deliver that I look like I I did mean it. In no way was I lying, but at the same time I deliver it like I'm an angel just fallen from heaven, you know, poor innocent victim.

[00:11:30]>> Both are true. And when I put the screws to that other boss long ago and said, "Well, I'm gonna have to consider if my career is not as important to Amazon as it is to me. I'm gonna have to think about that." Again, I said that with a warm smile, like, "Hey, of course I'm gonna have to think about that." And I just look like the kitten, you know, the anime kitten with the giant eyes. Well, body language matters because if I say that to you, see, I can say that differently. I can say, "Well, Ryan, you know, if my career is not as important to Amazon as is to me, I'm going to have to think about that." Then you're like, "Well, screw you, >> right?" Whereas if I say, "Well, of course I'm going to have to think about what that means for me."

[00:12:14]Totally different delivery. Same lines, same words. Now, there's some people watching this, engineers, who are like, "I hate you. I hate the politics. I hear you, but this is human nature and human interaction. You're dealing with other humans and their emotions are at play and their defensiveness and their own stress.

[00:12:32]Do yourself a favor and get good at this.